


Room to Breathe

by gongji



Category: Shin Sangokumusou | Dynasty Warriors, Sān guó yǎn yì | Romance of the Three Kingdoms - All Media Types
Genre: Canonical Character Death, Gen, M/M, Past Character Death, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 12:29:11
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/811606
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gongji/pseuds/gongji
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A short take on Ling Tong's final hours.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Room to Breathe

Ling Tong doesn’t remember when he got sick, but it must have happened a long time ago. The doctors told him it was a seasonal thing, with the flowers blooming and spreading pollen in the air and the temperature changes, you know, it would go away in time with some sleep and water.

But Ling Tong knows better – he’d felt it in his heart for the past fifteen years. He couldn’t just wash that away with just sleep and water (he’d already tried, so many times before).

And now, coming back from visiting his hometown he feels faint – the sun is too bright, the air is too thin, the company isn’t all too great…

“General Ling?”

He feels tired, and with that thought comes the slightest pinch in his chest. How strange, he thinks he’s felt that before (perhaps many times before) but it’s such an odd feeling nonetheless.

“General? Wha-- General!!” 

Huh, funny, he doesn’t remember falling off his horse but the dirt beneath him tells him that he is very much on the ground.  “Lord Ling Tong!!” He can hear his men yelling in the background; their voices are too loud and their grips on his arms in their attempt to sit him back up are too rough.

“I’m…fine…” Ling Tong hears his own voice but he doesn’t remember saying it. “Help me back on my horse.”

“My Lord you cannot ride in this condition, we’re …..” Ling Tong hears the voices fade out into the distance as he loses consciousness, and when his head falls back and body goes limp he can faintly hear his men yell even louder.

They ask the nearby village for a carriage and drag him inside, and when Ling Tong wakes up he is surrounded by pillows and silk sheets and a doctor who attentively sits beside him. “My Lord,” he nods and shows his respect but Ling Tong isn’t in the mood for this right now. What’s with all the sudden concern? It’s not the first time anyone has ever fallen off a horse before. It’s not the first time _he’s_ ever fallen off a horse before.

“What is it?” He sits up and suppresses a cough. “I’m a lot better now, I can ride. Where is my horse?”

“My Lord... if I may, you are in no condition to ride. Please, enjoy the carriage we have brought for you and rest.” The doctor says, but Ling Tong shakes his head.

“I said I was fine, it’s alright.” He tries to sit up but the minute he does his vision spins upside down and he can’t hold himself up straight. “I…it’s just a headache.” He says, just as his arms give up on him and he collapses back against the pillows. The doctor only gives him a small smile. A pity smile. Ling Tong has seen it so many times before on so many different faces.

“You must remain here, my lord.” The doctor insists, and Ling Tong knows he is right.

“Then, with all due respect, I will remain here alone. There’s no need to watch over me.” He says. “You can have my horse. She’s real friendly with strangers so don’t worry about spooking her. She’s seen a lot worse.” Ling Tong puts on his best smile but right now he doesn't know what that must look like. The doctor looks like he wants to say something – to protest – but he knows. They both know.

When the doctor leaves the carriage, Ling Tong lets out a short sigh and turns his attention to the wall beside him. “Hey.” He says, greeting an imagined ghost of his old lover who takes a seat across from him.

“Hey Gongji, you look like you haven’t slept in weeks.” Imaginary Gan Ning gives him a quick wave and a stupid smile and Ling Tong rolls his eyes.

“I’m seeing things now, am I dead?” He laughs gently, and his imagined Gan Ning hits him on the shoulder.

“Nah, you’re alive.”

“So I’m crazy.”

“Yeah but you've always been crazy.”

“Hey watch it, I’ll hit you, I’m armed.” He isn't, but his imagination won’t dispute him.

Gan Ning hops over to Ling Tong’s side and pokes his arm. “You doin’ okay without me, Gongji?” Ling Tong doesn't grace that with an answer because he’s too busy fighting back the tears that have suddenly welled up in the corner of his eyes and he tries to smile. He doesn't know where these tears are coming from, and his lover’s image reaches out to brush the fallen tears away from his face but they only fall harder when Ling Tong realizes he can’t feel Gan Ning’s touch. He can’t feel the rough touch of the calloused fingers he had grown to love against the soft skin of his stomach and thighs. He can’t smell the sea-salty musk that radiated from Gan Ning’s pores whenever he got excited, the scent Ling Tong always remembered hating for the longest time until it soaked itself in his sheets and wouldn't go away – the sheets he had spent most nights for the past fifteen years curled up around praying that his scent would linger for just one more night.

The night it finally went away was also the night Ling Tong felt his heart break for the last time. Thinking back on it now, that must have been when he got sick.

Ling Tong laughs as much as he can before his chest heaves and he needs to gasp for air. “Looks like I’m not doing so well, huh?” He whispers through labored breaths and Gan Ning frowns in the way Ling Tong knows so well – where his shoulders droop and his brow furrows and – wait, did he do that? The memory is too faded for Ling Tong to visualize. “Hey, come here.” Ling Tong reaches towards his lover to cup his face in his hand, the way he remembers Gan Ning used to…hate? Love? It frightens him now that he can’t remember. But his hand falls right through the image of Gan Ning, and Ling Tong feels like everything is moving in slow motion.

“I’m sorry…in the end it looks like I never told you how I felt about you.” Ling Tong admits to his lover’s ghost. Gan Ning doesn’t say anything, because Ling Tong doesn’t know what he’d say in this situation. Ling Tong laughs anyway but is interrupted by more coughing, the pressure in his chest increasing with each cough.

“What’s with all this?” Ling Tong finally has Gan Ning say something to drown out the ringing in his ears from his forceful coughing fit. “You haven’t forgotten about me yet, have you?”

 “Sorry Xingba, I told myself I would never try.” Ling Tong says the minute his coughing stops, and it feels so nice to say his lover’s name again. He gives him a small smile but it fades as soon as it graces his lips. Breathing is getting harder. “Though it looks like I won’t have to. But I do remember… I never did get to tell you…” It’s getting harder and harder for him to stay sitting up, so Ling Tong gently lies back against the pillows that were set up for him by the doctor. “I’ve always wanted to,” he breathes, “but I couldn’t. I was so stubborn and young and I had so much pride.” Too much pride. Where did it even lead him in the end? An unsteady, broken carriage, alone with a heart heavy and broken with burden he shouldn’t have had to bear.

But perhaps he was thinking too much about it.

Ling Tong looks at the imaginary figure of Gan Ning beside him. “I know you’re just a silly figment of my imagination, but…” He imagines Gan Ning grinning widely at him, waiting for the next part of his sentence, but Ling Tong can’t seem to get his details right. “But…” He tries again and reaches out to the empty space where the projection of his lover stood. “I have always….” He breathes, “Always…” His chest spasms with a violent cough that forces Ling Tong to roll to his side, and when he was done he doesn't even have the strength to wipe the tears from his cheeks.

He tries to laugh but a pathetic “heh” is all that comes out, and he rolls over onto his back again. “Looks like I can’t even say it to my own damn imagination.” He struggles against his own labored breaths to speak to his imaginary lover. “Not even to thin air.” Ling Tong thinks he can hear the faint ringing of bells in the distance. “Sorry, but it looks like… you’ll just have to wait a…little bit longer…”

He watched the sunset that night; quietly, slowly. And when the last drops of sunlight had slipped into a silent death, so too had Ling Tong. 

**Author's Note:**

> Ling Tong was on the way back from a quest to befriend the Shanyue people, who were causing trouble for Wu in the South. Sun Quan was unable to defeat them with fighting, so Ling Tong offered to go and earn their trust to add them to their troops. He was successful in this assignment, and after stopping in his hometown on the way back, he died of an unknown illness on the journey back to Sun Quan. Many scholars believe that his illness was caused by severe depression. Regardless of what his illness was caused by, he had most people fooled.  
> Ling Tong died in 237, an entire fifteen years after Gan Ning.


End file.
